Decoding the coder: my path to front-end development

December 17, 2020

Earlier this year, I had an epiphany about what I wanted to do with my career.

For half my life, I had believed bioinformatics was my calling. I had enrolled in one of only two bioinformatics undergraduate programs in the country, then pursued a PhD in bioinformatics and finally I’m a bioinformatician at a renowned cancer research center. Sounds pretty good, right?

Not exactly. What I was doing on day one of my job, I’m still doing seven years later (with a few small deviations, but generally a flat path). With my niche responsibilities and lack of growth opportunities, I had hit a standstill and didn’t know how to move forwards. I took on whatever new and exciting projects were available, and mentored numerous co-op students, but still I was feeling unsatisfied. The problem was, I wasn’t developing my skills as a programmer and programming was the part that I enjoyed the most.

One day, I was talking to a network contact about my situation. I asked her what she did exactly, and as she described the work, my eyes widened and my smile turned into a huge grin. Wait, I thought. I was having a lightbulb moment. From that moment on, I knew what I wanted to do with my career. Fast-forward ten months later, and I’ve learned all the basics of front-end development (HTML, CSS, Javascript, and React) and even launched a project / blog site on a domain that I am proud to call my own (you're looking at it)!

2020 has brought nothing but surprises - the best surprise for me was realizing that I had control over my future and that learning can be fun!! The Scrimba platform has been a game-changer for me, and I’m excited to share my solutions for the 24 days of #Javascriptmas. For each day of December until Christmas, I get to practice my Javascript skills with a unique challenge, and I also get to discover different ways of solving the same problem.

Merry Javascriptmas!